


to the moon

by lesmiserablol



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Firelord Zuko (Avatar), Fluff, Katara is a Great Sister/Wingman, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:08:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25100680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesmiserablol/pseuds/lesmiserablol
Summary: “I don’t really know what I’m doing...to be honest, I don’t usually, but I can fake it. Now, I don’t know where to begin, I just...let me start over. Hey, Yue, Zuko here. I wanted to talk to you. It’s about my feelings for Sokka.”About hiswhat?Forwho?
Relationships: Katara & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), past Sokka/Yue
Comments: 93
Kudos: 2074





	to the moon

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, I saw [this beautiful post on tumblr](https://angelreithoughts.tumblr.com/post/622740728974540800/can-you-imagine-zuko-not-knowing-how-to-approach) about Zuko talking to the moon about his feelings for Sokka and "the moon" talking back to him, and I immediately started writing this. 
> 
> The title comes from the poem "To the Moon" by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

“Um, hi.” 

Katara freezes, the water stilling in the air in front of her as she strains her ears, wondering if she had just imagined it or if she really heard someone's voice break the silence around her. She doesn’t know why her heart is beating so fast. If it’s someone normal, she’ll simply tell the truth and say “don’t mind me, just practicing”. If it’s someone less normal and more violent, well. There will be less talking and more bending on her part. 

Katara has a hard time sleeping in the Fire Nation. The weather is too hot and the sheets are too silky and seriously, the weather is too hot, even at night. During one of her first visits after the end of the war, she got tired of tossing and turning (and sweating) and had crept out of the palace. She had eventually found herself on the shore of the nearby lake, practicing some waterbending to calm her mind and help her get ready to sleep while under the protection of the night. Since then, it has become a tradition for the days when they come to spend some time with Zuko. 

Her eyes scan the beach that she is standing on, hoping the moonlight will reveal the intruder, but no one is in sight. Her eyes trail up to the wooden dock directly above her, hiding her from plain sight. 

Just when she is about to continue her bending, sure that she imagined the voice after all, she hears it again. Yep, that is definitely coming from someone on the dock. 

“I don’t really know what I’m doing...to be honest, I don’t usually, but I can fake it. Now, I don’t know where to begin, I just...” She hears a sigh. “Let me start over. Hey, Yue, Zuko here. I wanted to talk to you. It’s about my feelings for Sokka.”

About his _what?_

For _who?_

The water suspended in the air in front of Katara immediately drops, quietly falling into the sand as one of her hands slaps over her mouth in surprise, not daring to make a sound and scare Zuko off. 

Katara isn’t an idiot. Not as much as Zuko is, anyway. While Zuko seems to not notice just how blatantly flirtatious her brother becomes around the Fire Lord, Katara can see how he blushes when Sokka smiles at him or the way he lights up when Sokka enters the room, how Sokka is like the oxygen that Zuko’s fire thrives off of.

At first, she was offended. Her entrances are more than worthy of a similar enthusiastic response from her friend, thank you very much. But once she started noticing how Zuko had a permanent look of fascination around Sokka, something clicked. Okay, yeah, she didn't want Zuko to look at her that way. 

Still. Being a genius and figuring out Zuko does indeed have the hots for Sokka while Sokka still is uncertain (“Do you think he’ll be happy to see me again? I hope so. It’s been almost three months. I know I’m happy to see him. But maybe it’s different for him, I’m sure he thinks of me as just his best buddy coming by to hang out and stare at him longingly.”) is different than hearing Zuko say it out loud. 

...to the moon. 

She shakes her head. She’s losing focus. 

“-just a little crush for a while,” Zuko is saying. “And then everything happened so fast, the war ended and I became Fire Lord and he had other things to do and we didn’t see each other very often. But then...” Zuko falls quiet, and Katara is staring above her, willing him to continue. Normally, she wouldn’t want to hear about this. He’s talking about her brother, so, gross. But this is Zuko! She needs all the gossip on the leader of the Fire Nation and whoever happens to spark his interest. 

Plus, she has earned this. You don’t listen to your brother pine over a boy for so long only to not hear the other side of it. 

Zuko sighs, and Katara can picture him looking down the way he does when he gets self conscious about something. “I don’t know what I’m doing. Talking to the moon?” he mutters. 

Katara panics as she hears his footsteps retreating. Wait! Come back! Her mind races as she looks from the moon to the dock and then to the water in front of her, and she smirks. Sokka would be proud of how quickly she came up with a plan. 

She takes a page out of the old Adventures With the Avatar book and turns on the theatrics. 

“Wait!” she hisses, making her voice higher than usual. Zuko’s footsteps stop, and Katara bends the water on the shore, making small waves out of the still lake water. Her feet get wet in the process. Her brother is lucky she loves him so much, but don’t tell him that. 

“What? Who was that?” Zuko asks quickly. 

“It’s me, Princess Yue. I’m listening, Lord Zuko,” Katara continues in her voice. 

“You...you’re listening. You. The moon. Am I going crazy?”

Zuko is crazy in his own ways, sure. If anything, Katara is relieved that he’s questioning the fact that the moon is speaking to him. If he had just accepted it without hesitation, well, maybe Sokka would be too skeptical for him. 

“That’s up to you to decide,” she answers. “Either way, wouldn’t it be nice to get it off your chest?”

She hears Zuko walk toward the end of the dock again. “I guess.”

“What were you saying? About your feelings for Sokka?” 

“I- oh. Well. I thought they would go away. I thought I was just latching onto the closest cute guy my age. But then he started to come here to visit every so often, and my feelings remained. Then by the time it was the first anniversary of my coronation, he had broken up with Suki, and...I couldn’t deny it any more.”

Katara’s eyes are as wide as the moon that Zuko is addressing. She didn’t realize the fire of Zuko’s crush had been burning for so long. 

Hearing this is unbelievable, sure, but what is more unbelievable is that there is no one else to hear it with her! Toph isn’t here to shake with silent laughter, Aang isn’t here to give her a wide eyed look of “Aww, isn’t this adorable?”, and Sokka isn’t here to...well. If Sokka were here, he would have joined Zuko on the dock by now. 

“It’s been over two years since we became friends, and my feelings for him have only grown stronger,” Zuko adds. 

The line is so sappy, so cheesy that Katara can’t find it in herself to be grossed out by it. Sokka loves that kind of romantic mumbo jumbo (so does she, but she’s not the one on trial here, okay?) and Katara has always known they would make a good couple, but hearing Zuko like this just confirms it. 

However, she is still Sokka’s younger sister. And so she must do what any good younger sister would do. 

She must determine whether the Fire Lord is good enough for her brother. 

“What do you like about Sokka?” she asks airily. 

“What’s not to love?” he gives a short laugh. “He’s so funny, he’s the smartest guy I know, and yet he’s also pretty dumb sometimes. It’s endearing, though. He looks people in the eye when he talks to them. He makes everyone feel important. He cracks jokes about how great he is but in reality, he’s very humble and sometimes even oblivious to his best qualities. Plus, he’s very handsome.”

Katara rolls her eyes and tries not to gag. Fine, maybe Zuko does deserve Sokka. She decides she no longer wants the details. “Yes, Sokka is wonderful. I loved him dearly.”

“Is it...okay with you? If I tell him how I feel?”

Okay, another ten points for Zuko, that is sweet. Zuko being considerate of the feelings of the moon when it comes to dating her former flame...Katara shakes her head. That was probably one of the weirder sentences she has ever thought about. 

She thinks of Yue, thinks of what she would say if she were really here, talking to Zuko about this, and the words come naturally. “Of course. My time with Sokka has come to an end, and he deserves to be with someone who cares for him. Someone like you.”

“Thank you,” Zuko says. “He misses you, you know. Sometimes he talks about you, especially when there is a full moon like this. He looks up and says ‘isn’t she beautiful?’ and he just stands there to admire you.”

Katara smiles. She had caught Sokka doing that once or twice, following the events at the Northern Water Tribe, but she didn’t realize it is still a habit of his. It makes sense, though. Sokka has a big heart and always keeps it open to those he loves, she can see it in the way he still treasures his friendship with Suki. “I miss him too, but I’m glad he has you now.”

“So what should I do?” he asks, so softly that Katara has to make the waves smaller to hear him better. She thought that calm, level headed Zuko was a quiet talker. But that was nothing compared to how he speaks when he’s talking to the moon. 

“I think you know what you need to do,” she answers. “You should talk to him.”

Zuko sighs. “I was afraid you would say that.”

“What else would you do?” Katara adds a little laugh, but she’s rolling her eyes again. Seriously, Zuko and Sokka seem to be allergic to Talking About Their Feelings. At least to one another. Sokka has no qualms about waxing poetic to Katara over how Zuko’s laugh makes him melt. 

“You wouldn’t be able to tell him for me, would you?” Zuko asks, and Katara hears the slight smile in his voice. 

“I’m afraid not. But trust me, Zuko. Talk to him. Maybe you’ll be surprised with what he will say to you.”

“He talks to you, right? Does he like me back?” he asks quickly. 

Again, Sokka does in fact talk to Katara about Zuko. A lot. Maybe a bit too often. No, definitely a bit too often. She has it on pretty good authority that Sokka absolutely likes Zuko back, but she’s not sure it’s her (or rather, Yue’s) place to tell Zuko that. 

“He cares about you deeply,” she answers vaguely. “If you don’t speak soon, you may loose your chance. Don’t be afraid of how you feel.”

Zuko seems satisfied with that answer. Katara can visualize the fiery resolution in his eyes. “You’re right. I’m going to talk with him. Thank you, Yue.” 

Katara considers stepping out of the cover of the dock and revealing herself, she considers giving Zuko other advice (“While I have you here, I should mention that Fire Lords should be getting more sleep”), but she doesn’t do either. She stays silent and drops her hand, letting the water return to normal. She waits until she hears Zuko’s footsteps retreat, and after several more minutes, she is about to go back to the palace as well when she hesitates. She looks at the moon. Is it just her imagination, or does the moonlight seem brighter than it had earlier? She takes a moment to look at it, smiling and thinking of Yue. 

“Sokka is in good hands,” she mumbles. “They both are.”

She redirects her attention to the water. A few more minutes of bending couldn’t hurt. She probably won’t get any sleep anyway, not with the memory of this conversation burning in her mind. 

Damn, she’s on fire with these puns tonight. 

* * *

Apparently when Zuko told Yue he was going to talk to Sokka, he meant very soon, because at breakfast the next morning the two won’t stop smiling and they keep sneaking glances at each other, blushing. 

It’s disgusting. 

Katara is so happy for them.

Conversation at the table isn’t much different than usual. Toph grumbles about being up early, Aang plays with his food a little more than is appropriate for a hundred and fifteen year old Avatar, and Zuko and Sokka flirt with each other and brush fingers and make each other laugh like they always do until they excuse themselves.

Zuko pauses to put a hand on Katara's shoulder, giving her a sweet smile and mouthing a "thank you" before walking with Sokka out of the dining hall, their hands joining just as they slip through the door. She smiles at her plate, grateful that Zuko is smart enough to figure it out. She wasn't sure how to come clean to him about her antics the night before.

“Okay, is someone going to tell me what is going on?” Toph asks immediately. “I don’t need to see to know that those two were staring dreamily into each other’s eyes this whole time. And I mean more than they normally do.” 

“Yeah, something is definitely different,” Aang says slowly, looking at Katara. 

She takes a swig of watermelon juice. “You guys are not going to believe what happened last night.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed the abundance of fire related puns, lmao. Let me know what you guys think!
> 
> I have a [main tumblr](https://lesmiserablol.tumblr.com/) and an [Avatar the Last Airbender blog](https://bisexuallsokka.tumblr.com/) <3


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